On the morning of May 4, when fans of George Lucas's Star Wars were busy flooding each others' social media timelines with 'May The Fourth Be With You' greetings, Swedish journalist Alexandra Pascalidou was on the brink of creating history.

Having spent months following the developments of the sexual abuse and corruption scandal in the Swedish Academy - the eminent body that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature - Pascalidou recalls feeling anger and shame at how the events were unfolding in her home country. "We have a government that calls itself feminist and is one of the most equal countries in the world. We take a clear stand against sexism," says Pascalidou, of why she was so shocked. But, what hurt most was when the Academy took the bold step of cancelling the Nobel on May 4. "Being an author myself, and hailing from a poor family without academic traditions, I know that many authors really need the prize money and acknowledgment to be able to write. If they [the Academy] can't do their job, they should resign and let somebody else take over. I wondered why they would punish literature and authors," she says in an email interview.